Tuesday, 15 July 2014

That refloated ocean liner begins deck chair arrangements

"Junior minister for constant viewing water and solvent or oil based liquid colour which slowly evaporates to allow the forming of a hard film surface with a gloss or matt protective coating."

But Gove is out.

Is this a brilliant move to draw the poison from the teaching unions stings. Or just cowardice? I would have tried to use the factionalising Gove as an asset.

"We are doing what's right, what's necessary and what the Labour Party beholden to union money will never dare to do! To put children, rather than teachers, first!"

Clearly this is an election reshuffle, designed to promote media friendly, gender politics faces, at the expense of divisive and difficult ministers.

Ok, so nothing much is going to happen in government between now and May 2015. It doesn't usually, and with liberal divorce looming, it's even more unlikely anything would be proposed that could actually be passed.

It all looks a bit Crosby. Remove toxicity...present a more inclusive narrative...get some women into the chumocracy.

Only, isn't it all a bit late? It's a necessary strategy. But it looks desperate to me.

Cameron should receive praise for sticking with his ministers and not shuffling them around all the time so nothing ever gets done. But this latest women wheeze does look to me about a year to late.

22 comments:

DtP
said...

I guess by not giving the job to Liz Truss (formerly of Calderdale and a total wet) and giving it to Morgan (nope, me neither) then the brief itself can continue and she does detoxify the NUTters. Having him as Chief Whip will at least give vigour to any dodgy votes that may or may not happen and gives wide lens should this Inquiry into an Inquiry into an Inquiry of paedo stuff ever happen.

I hope Crosby's seriously thinking about a bit of Chilcotting - I do like a little bit at Christmas time.

Sacking Bob Kerslake was very clever, too. Hammond - FCO? What's he gonna do - bore people to death - the lad could do it too, he really could!

The big surprise for me was William Hague quitting. Has he had enough or will he stage a comeback at some point?

Gove just seems to want to pick fights so it is a good move to place him as chief whip. He can bully all he likes there.

A woman (and mother) in education is probably "a good thing" and may smooth over the troubled waters in time for the election.

The woman/gender thing is a bit of a red herring in my view but a small step in the right direction perhaps to put some women in higher positions.

I quite like Hammond...he may come across as boring but he may prove quite good in the FO and won't ruffle feathers abroad whilst possibly shaking things up in the department which by all accounts operates as if we are still in the century before last.

I think Gove went a bit mad. I couldn't be more enthusiastic about free schools and the huge expansion of academies, but why all the guff about traditional teaching methods and interfering majesterially with the curriculum? Either he wants schools to take responsibility for their pupils' outcomes or he wants to nanomanage from the centre. You can't do both! Also, he should be mature enough to know you have to take the unions with you on school reform and he's deliberately been rude to them.

Hague had clearly lost interest. Our esteemed hosts pointed that out fairly recently. He has appeared to have been a bit of a waste of space from where I sit.

I think the pre-announcement of all the female boost was stupid because now none of the female promotees can claim to be there on merit, even though most of them probably are.

Mr Miller. Normally we advocate such strategising here. The masters tend not to do it until forced too.

This looks forced.

Its not a terrible reshuffle. But its late in the day to be trying to rebrand. If you look at it as a deck clearing excercise where all distractions, external and internal, are removed, reduced or silenced, then it looks more reasonable.

Gove upsets agitator lefties and champagne socialists whenever he speaks. And he's fighting with 'Mother' Theresa.Patterson upset the eco-loons.Stamp out the not enough wins complaints from the opposition.Clarke upsets everyone whenever he speaks on anything at all, however mildly...

All the 'problems' gone. Clean slate for smiley faces to win over lost women voters.

Both Maggs and Tony won their election by getting the less factional females to switch to their brand.

I genuinely don't buy the Patterson line - he may be a brilliant technician, philosopher, hell - he may be a great Tory but the lad can't speak, he can't construct sentences so.....fuck him.

He was heralded as the 'next great hope' so if Dave took him out because of freaky weather conditions and an unfortunate retina, well, tough titty - the guy can't speak - fuck him.

Always thought the Mitchell thing was Dave thinking like a kid - seeing threats where there were none. Plus Paterson fucked Somerset and the badgers - not exactly an exemplary CV! Seriously, can't believe Paterson was ever in the game - must know some people.

my sister is a school secretary. basically, the catchment area for her school this year is a 300m radius.

This will upset a lot of people.

As a non-free school they are not allowed any money to expand.

This obsession with free schools, completely barking decisions on the curriculum and a complete inability to communicate with teachers meant that pretty soon all that he has tried to do will fade away and seen as a failure.

Women thing - bad tokenism on both sides of the argument and quite possibly misdirection.

DtP - agreed Patterson was crap and deserved to go. Even if he was right, (he wasnt imho), he didnt even pretend to take into account opposing views, (bad politics).

So oppposed some EU stuff not because it was shit, but because it was the EU, thus giving some UKIP'er wet dreams.

Personally his stance on at his on neocotinoid pesticides and GMO rice werw nothing but a shameful (and embarrasing for a Govt. minister) repeating of corporate lobbying. So he wasnt in the EU's pocket just someone else's ( like the Agro / Chemical corporates), as though that's somehow better, in truth actually no different in any way.

I was only half listening but I heard a snior civil servant (Gus O'Donnell?) this am on the Today programme talking about the reshuffle and then mentioning November in passing as if that was going to be the date of the election. Could this be right? Yhe next time he said more or less the same thing and said May at the relevant point which makes me think that Nov was actually what he meant all along.

Gove out = Unions triumphant, LEA's back in the driving seat, free schools soon to be subsumed back into the ossifying grip of the Left, and another generation (at least) of children - especially poor whites - condemned to the bog-standard comp.